Washington's first World's Fair -- the
Alaska-Yukon-Pacific Exposition -- was held in Seattle on the
grounds of the University of Washington campus between June 1
and October 16, 1909, and drew more than three million people.
The Pay Streak was the A-Y-P Exposition's midway area. It
offered (for a price) a dizzying array of carnival rides,
souvenirs, refreshments, and quasi-educational exhibits. These
last involved the display of human beings in varying degrees
of their (purported) natural settings, going about what was
supposedly their usual daily work. The Baby Incubator Exhibit,
which introduced fairgoers to an early version of mechanical
controlled environments for the benefit of premature infants,
featured living human babies as the (passive) performers,
demonstrating applied science in the nursery decades before
such technology was commonly integrated into neonatal care in
hospitals.

Preemies on the Midway

Baby incubator exhibits were an expected
feature on exposition midways from the 1896 Berlin Exposition
on. Visitors to Omaha's Trans-Mississippi and International
Exposition in 1898, Buffalo's Pan-American Exposition in 1901,
St. Louis's Louisiana Purchase Exposition in 1904, and
Portland's Lewis and Clark Exposition in 1905 experienced a
similar concession. (At most of these, including the Lewis
and Clark Exposition, the Baby Incubator Exhibit was managed
by Dr. Martin Couney, the foremost promoter of the baby
incubator sideshows at expositions. Couney's Baby Incubator
Exhibit at Luna Park in New York's Coney Island ran from 1903
to 1943. Although A-Y-P's Baby Incubator Exhibit bears a
strikingly similar physical resemblance to Couney's baby
incubator shows, no connection between Couney and the A-Y-P
has yet been discovered.)

As announced in The Seattle Daily
Times on February 14, 1909, "The baby incubators will be
seen at The Exposition, as well as W. H. Barnes with Princess
Trixie, the educated horse." The display of human infants on
the Pay Streak midway apparently elicited no protest from
fairgoers (including visiting physicians), or from the local
medical community.

Seattle already had a permanent (or at
least seasonal) baby incubator exhibit: the Infant
Electrobator concession at Luna Park in West Seattle. (An
electrobator was an incubator heated by electricity.) Further
details about this concession, where infants must have been
rattled by the clatter of the wooden roller coaster and
soothed by calliope music from the nearby carousel, appear to
have vanished. It is possible that the A-Y-P exhibit and that
at Luna Park were in some way connected.

French physician Alexandre Lion's
incubator, patented in 1889, was commonly used in baby
incubator exhibits at expositions. These incubators varied
greatly from the infant incubators utilized in modern neonatal
intensive care units. The A-Y-P's incubators regulated the
temperature inside the unit and pulled in outside air for
ventilation, nothing more. They would have been beneficial to
well preemies needing no special care beyond steady warmth.
The incubators exhibited at fairs and expositions had no
ability to aid babies who could not breathe on their own, and
there was at the time (and for many subsequent decades) no
therapy for such children.

The A-Y-P Baby Incubator Exhibit
apparently experienced no deaths, and it is unlikely that
babies who lacked a very good prognosis would have been put on
display for fear of negative public relations should they not
survive, if for no other reason. By comparison, during the
course of the A-Y-P the Seattle Department of Health
attributed 33 deaths throughout the city to premature birth,
among 64 deaths attributed to that cause during the year
1909. Luck was also with the A-Y-P in that the incubator
babies were spared the fate of those exhibited on the Pike at
the Louisiana Purchase Exposition, where an epidemic of
contagious diarrhea among the infants cost the lives of nearly
half.

M. E. Fischer -- Physician,
Salesman, or Concessionaire?

The Baby Incubator Exhibit was among the
earliest concessions secured for the Pay Streak. The April
1908 Alaska-Yukon Magazine included it on a list of
concessions "already signed," along with the Eskimo Village
and Frank H. Nowell's appointment as official A-Y-P
photographer. "Kny-Scherrer [sic] Company, New York," was
credited as signatory on the contract. Kny-Scheerer was a
surgical supply company with an office in Jamaica, New York,
that manufactured the Lion-style baby incubator.

The manager of the A-Y-P Baby Incubator
Exhibit was M. E. Fischer. An M. Edward Fischer, his wife
Laura, and son Henry were enumerated in the 1910 Federal
Census at 4312 10th Avenue NE (now Roosevelt Way NE), several
blocks away from the Pay Streak. Fischer's employer is listed
as surgical instrument company. If this was indeed the M. E.
Fischer in charge of the Baby Incubator Exhibit, he was still
a local resident in 1920, when census takers enumerated him in
Bellevue.

The Seattle Star (the city's
most salacious daily at the time) called Fischer "the
big-hearted and genial chap who stands in loco parentis to all
of the world's little weaklings that are offered to him," and
went on to claim that "he has had his incubators at every
exposition since the incubator principle was tested and found
good" (June 15, 1909). This claim was almost certainly refers
to the incubators, not to Fischer, although it is possible
that if he were a product salesman for Kny-Scheerer he was
present at other expositions. Fischer is notably not referred
to as a physician.

During this time period, the Infant
Incubator Company at Dreamland, an amusement park at Coney
Island in New York, advertised in The Billboard, the
trade magazine for theatrical professionals including sideshow
and midway performers: "Baby Incubators, complete
installations as operated by us, for sale to hospitals and
amusement parks" (May 1, 1909). The contact listed was Dr. S.
Fischel, who was also in charge of the Dreamland incubator
show in 1911 when that park suffered a devastating fire in
which some of the babies were initially reported to have been
killed. The similarity between the names of A-Y-P's Fischer
and Dreamland's Fischel seems coincidental, but remains
intriguing.

Like the Igorrote Village and Eskimo
Village concessions, the Baby Incubator exhibit received
continual press during the fair. Most of this "news coverage"
consisted of breathless reports on the progress of various
babies, who were identified by first name. The babies were
depicted as tiny feisty prizefighters who, aided by their
incubators, could "fight (a bottle) not only often but for the
full three-minute rounds" (The Seattle Star, June 15,
1909). The article concluded with a virtual step-right-up:
"Daily, new little ones are coming into the incubators and
with every one that comes there is a story of heart interest
to stir the hardest."

By the middle of the exposition's run,
newspaper readers were assumed to know the incubator babies by
name and follow their stories. Under the heading "New Subject
for Baby Incubator," The Seattle Daily Times
reported, "The recent graduation of Catherine and the adoption
of Dorothy have created no end of comment and discussion among
the visitors ... . Little Tony will be ready for adoption when
graduated from the incubator ... . Dorothy, the graduate, will
spend the summer on a ranch near Rockford, with her adopted
mother" (July 11, 1909). On August 15, 1909, the Times
reported, "Little Guy, Fanny, Charles, Marguerite, Mabel,
and Harry are now incubator subjects and are starting on a
tiny path to life and success."

Paid display advertisements kept the
babies' supposed struggle at the public forefront and
emphasized the concession's potential to impart scientific
information: "The fighting chance for babies. The Baby
Incubators. The greatest heart interest exhibit at the
A-Y-P. An education for mothers, a lesson for fathers. On
the Pay Streak" ran an advertisement in The Seattle Daily
Times on July 9, 1909. A June 10, 1909, advertisement in
the Seattle Post-Intelligencer was more succinct: "We
Save The Lives Of Babies." This ran directly under a larger
advertisement for the Igorrote Village boasting "50 Head
Hunters 50" -- the Pay Streak spectacles evidently spanned the
gamut.

Life With Babies

The Pay Streak was often the busiest,
loudest, most crowded portion of the exposition grounds. The
Baby Incubator Exhibit, housed in a two-story neoclassical
pavilion featuring Ionic columns and graced by ornamental
pilasters and window moldings, was sited on the lower end of
the South Pay Streak between the Temple of Palmistry and the
Gold Camps of Alaska. The palmistry concession was probably a
quiet neighbor, but the Gold Camps' raucous Wild West show and
pan-for-gold activities must have detracted from the soothing
nursery atmosphere cultivated in the incubator viewing room.

Fairgoers filed into this viewing room
and examined Lion incubators arrayed against the wall. A rail
separated patrons from the incubators (enclosed heated and
ventilated glass boxes) in which the babies rested, cocooned
in blankets. The Seattle Daily Times stated, "Some
of the little ones are sleeping, some lying in almost
inanimate positions, while others, who are making rapid
progress in their development, cry and fidget just like
healthy babies born at maturity" (August 8, 1909).

Female attendants wearing nurse uniforms
and a male attendant in a white lab coat stood by. High
transom windows admitted light and air. The ceiling was
stenciled with an ivy design. Live potted palms were placed
between the incubators, and weight-bearing support columns
were designed to resemble palm trees. Fischer, and perhaps
others, gave periodic lectures on incubator technology and
other aspects of scientific infant care.

The exposition grounds closed to the
public at midnight, but many people were present through the
night: guards in the various buildings, firemen and Emergency
Hospital staff, cleaning personnel, teamsters making
deliveries, and many of the performers on the Pay Streak.
This included the incubator babies and their caregivers, who
almost certainly had bedrooms in the (non-public) upstairs
area. Life with babies made (relatively) famous by virtue of
their passive performance in the Incubator Exhibit still
included the many mundane tasks of infant care: bathing,
weighing, feeding, and changing diapers. A photograph
showing the back side of the Baby Incubator Exhibit building
documents an open porch area strung with a laundry line of
diapers drying in the breeze.

It is difficult to gauge the actual size
and age of the infants depicted in period photographs of the
concession. One baby captured in a Frank Nowell photograph
appears almost too large to be shoehorned into the incubator
in which he sleeps (AYP536). An infant photographed in an
open bassinette in the exam room also appears robust
(AYP1212).

Images of incubator babies from other
American expositions document infants of markedly smaller size
than those captured in A-Y-P photographs. Larger babies would
have presumably had a better chance of survival, although
presumably very small infants would have impressed the
crowds. If A-Y-P's incubator babies were larger than their
preemie peers at other fairs, perhaps their rainbow ethnicity
was their main draw.

Babies Of All Nations

Much was made of the A-Y-P incubator
babies' wide-ranging ethnicities. The Seattle Star
called them "hustling little youngsters of every nation" and
described "Peluck" (whom the paper identified as "a tiny
little Siwash boy" from Kitsap County), "a blue-eyed little
Swede girl," "little Oyusha San ... the daintiest little
Japanese maid that was brought over from a strawberry ranch
near Bellevue," and two-months-premature "Ralph ... with all
an Irishman's fighting ability and the constitution of an
Alaskan moose" (June 15, 1909).

By July 18, 1909, The Seattle Daily
Times listed the "register of the Incubator Institute" as
containing "American, English, Indian, Italian, Swedish,
Syrian, and Russian (babies). A Japanese baby is daily
expected." Exactly how this premature birth could be daily
expected was not explained.

Later that month a much-publicized
Children of All Nations Dinner was held in honor of the many
children living and working on the Pay Streak. The
Seattle Daily Times reported that "Siwash Jack, the
Indian incubator baby, three months old, was brought to the
table by his nurse" (July 24, 1909), begging the question of
whether Jack needed the incubator or the Incubator Exhibit's
ticket sales needed Jack.

On August 21, 1909, The Seattle
Daily Times reported that Fischer's Baby Incubators was
awarded third place, "most original," in the Parade of All
Nations on Pay Streak Day.

Many of the Incubator Exhibit babies may
have been foundlings, and at least some of these were touted
to have been adopted during the course of the fair. Babies
who were deemed large and strong enough by the staff
transitioned to a regular nursery, then "graduated" and were
moved to the exhibit's day nursery or left the exhibit, while
other babies joined the concession to take their places. King
County adoption records are private, making it difficult to
determine the veracity of the "graduate" adoptions announced
in the newspapers.

Although local newspapers carried no
specific stories about non-foundling incubator babies, a July
4, 1909, article in The Seattle Daily Times states,
"Little tiny mites are cared for in these machines until they
become matured and physically strong enough to be returned to
their parents."

The Baby Incubator Café

Photographic evidence of the Baby
Incubator Exhibit's exterior clearly document a sign reading
"café" on the side of the building. This feature appears to be
unique to the A-Y-P concession: medical historians who have
studied baby incubator shows from their inception have thus
far uncovered no evidence of café features in incubator
exhibits at any other exposition.

Although a period photograph of the
concession captures a group of what appear to be waiters
clustered outside the door marked "café," extensive research
in A-Y-P Exposition archival materials has thus far not
uncovered any menu for the Baby Incubator café, nor do period
newspapers refer to the dining experience there, nor is the
café mentioned in the Baby Incubator Exhibit's numerous
display advertisements. This silence begs the question of
whether food and drink were sold in the exhibit at all --
perhaps the term "café" was used tongue-in-cheek to indicate a
viewing room where infants were fed by bottle? At many other
expositions babies were breastfed by wet nurses in private
spaces not on public view, also a probability for the Seattle
babies due to the lack of effective artificial formulas at the
time. If wet nurses were employed, they may have brought
their own nursing infants along.

Sleight of (Tiny) Hand?

Another Baby Incubator Exhibit feature
that was apparently unique to the A-Y-P was the option of
hourly paid childcare. The Seattle Daily Times
stated just before the exposition opened, "A nursery is
conducted in connection with the baby incubator and infants
may be checked at this place, where they will be in charge of
competent nurses" (May 30, 1909, p. 3).

The presence of a café and the day-care
service, as well as the apparently robust nature of infants
who appear in period photographs, coupled with the extensive
ballyhoo about their wide range of ethnicities, might mean
that the A-Y-P Baby Incubator Exhibit leaned more toward
money-making concession and less toward life-saving medical
need. The public certainly saw, as promised in the electric
sign across the top of the concession's facade, "Baby
Incubators With Living Infants." Whether those infants chosen
for display at the A-Y-P actually needed or derived any
benefit from the scientific controlled environments in which
they were displayed remains an open question.

The 1911 Secretary's Report of the
Alaska-Yukon-Pacific Exposition statesthat M.
E. Fischer'sInfant Incubator Exhibit generated
$7,200 in Gross Receipts, providing an estimated $1,650 in
A-Y-P revenue. At 25 cents per head, that would mean 28,800
tickets to the concession were sold. If indeed the "café" was
an actual restaurant, however, some of these proceeds were
likely generated by the sale of food and drink, and some
portion of the proceeds were likely generated by the hourly
child-care service.

Babies Today

By 1948 Providence Hospital in Seattle
had five incubators with oxygen therapy (air that was
conditioned with oxygen). Other Seattle hospitals with
nurseries either had incubators by that time or introduced
them shortly thereafter. Spokane's Deaconess, St. Luke's and
Sacred Heart hospitals were also equipped with incubators by
1948.

By the early 1970s a growing number of
Washington hospitals were equipped with newborn intensive care
units that featured complex incubator technology approaching
that found in current (2009) neonatal intensive care units.